Holder to black leaders: 'Sacred' right to vote under attack

5/30/12 11:28 AM EDT

Attorney General Eric Holder told a council of African American church leaders Wednesday that the "sacred" right to vote is under assault nationwide, with federal lawsuits and at least a dozen state laws that could hinder - or block – minorities’ access to the ballot box this fall.

"In my travels across this country, I’ve heard a consistent drumbeat of concern from citizens, who – often for the first time in their lives – now have reason to believe that we are failing to live up to one of our nation’s most noble ideals,” Holder said in a speech before the Council of Black Churches. The threats of legal assaults and lingering discrimination, he added, means that “some of the achievements that defined the civil rights movement now hang in the balance.”

As if to underscore the point, however, a voting rights group is worried that Holder and the Justice Department aren’t acting quickly enough to stop Florida’s Republican governor from continuing a purge of registered voters from the state’s rolls because they lack proof of U.S. citizenship.

The Advancement Project accuses Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, of taking an end run around Voting Rights Act provisions to keep minorities from voting, and calls on Holder to immediately block it. “We are particularly concerned about the impact of this election year’s voter removal practice on eligible voters of color protected under the Voting Rights Act, given Florida’s documented history of erroneous discriminatory purges in the past,” according to the May 17 letter.

“The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy and every eligible citizen deserves an opportunity to participate,” said Judith Browne Dianis, co director of Advancement Project, a civil rights organization that works to protect voting rights. “Overly broad purges during election years are dangerous in that they can wrongfully deny access to the ballot to large numbers of American citizens who are eligible voters. This process unfairly targets Latino voters and must end immediately.

In Florida, “there’s a history of preventing eligible citizens from voting in presidential election years,” Dianis said. “In 2000 and 2004, the state used a flawed method to come up with a listing of people believed to be ineligible to vote due to past felony convictions and sought to purge them from the rolls. Tens of thousands of voters were illegitimately disenfranchised including those listed who had been granted clemency and had their rights fully restored.”

Access to the polls is becoming a highly contentious issue ahead of the 2012 election between President Barack Obama and his GOP challenger, Mitt Romney – a contest most political analysts believe will be decided by a razor-thin margin. Republican governors and lawmakers at the state level have pushed through numerous laws and executive orders designed to eliminate voter fraud, proposals which Democrats say are unnecessary and will effectively suppress turnout among minorities and others.

With new laws and old struggles as a backdrop, Holder’s speech before the Council of Black Churches was a call to arms, reminding the audience of its history fighting for equal voting right for minorities.

The attorney general told them his office is "aggressively" taking on the task of protecting that right, including challenging several state lawsuits that would overturn key provisions of the Voting Rights Act involving redistricting in Southern states and strict new voter ID laws that strips away the guarantee of equal access to the ballot box in the 2012 election.

Ensuring that everyone who is qualified can vote "is one of our highest priorities," Holder told the council, adding that during his watch the Justice Department has taken on more than 100 cases involving voting within the past year, "a record number." Since President Bush re-authorized the Section 5 provision of the Voting Rights Act, which requires some Southern states to get federal approval before making broad changes to laws involving voting, "it has consistently come under attack by those who say it is no longer needed."

Holder also rejected conservatives' contention that making it easier to vote invites fraud, a key argument in calling for tougher voter I'd laws. Recalling that protesters and faith leaders faced violence and death to gain that right during the 1960s civil rights movement, Holder called on black churches to mobilize as an ally of the Justice Department, informing the larger community and pushing back against restrictive proposals.

"We have to honor the generations that took extraordinary risks" to guarantee equal access to the polls, Holder said. The nation has made tremendous progress, he added, but "this fight must go on."